SUMMIT 2012 ~ Overview

In January 2012, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) enlarged the scope of the University-Industry Council set up in 2007 into AICTE-CII University-Industry Congress. Under this, there are various initiatives which both AICTE and CII are taking to improve academia-industry relations

About University-Industry Congress

As an industry organization working closely with the government and academia to address their issues and concerns, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) constituted University-Industry Congress in 2011 as a step in the direction of bridging the gap between academia and industry which is at the root of the employability problem

Presentation on CII's 2012 Global University-Industry Congres

Presentation Link

From U-I Council to U-I Congress

It was in May 2007, that CII took the proactive step of providing a platform for industry to interact with universities for knowledge sharing and catalyzing several joint activities either collectively or bilaterally by forming the University-Industry Council (U-I Council). The aim of the Council was to facilitate a fruitful cooperation between the universities and industry, essential for building and strengthening the human capital of India. The University-Industry Council had representation from heads of universities-Central, State, Deemed and Open; senior members of industry; eminent educationists; education bodies such as UGC, AICTE and CII. In 2011, the U-I Council was enlarged into a University-Industry Congress.

Since 2007 nine in the series of University-Industry Council Symposiums have been held in different parts of the country:-

1. First symposium was held in New Delhi
2. Second in Mumbai
3. Third in Puducherry, at Pondicherry University
4. Fourth in Shibpur, at BESU
5. Fifth at Nagaland University
6. Sixth in Bangalore
7. Seventh at Shivaji University in Kolhapur
8. Eighth at Jammu University
9. Ninth at Jadavpur University

Patches of Excellence

Increasing the employability of students through finishing courses and workshops has emerged as a new business vertical in recent years. There are no short-cuts to monumental problems. They require persistent effort year after year. That said, it is not as if in all these years of enlightened thinking and talk of excellence, no work has been done in the direction of forging industryacademia tie-ups. When experts were busy chastising industry and academia for ignoring each others’ demands and requirements, there were both companies and institutes which were quietly doing what others were just talking about. University-Industry Congress discusses and celebrates the work of such institutes and companies. One of the key elements of University-Industry Congress is indexing of higher education institutes on their industry linkages; by capturing success stories and best practices of such linkages and by creating a roadmap for others to follow. In 2011, the scope of the AICTE-CII University-Industry Congress was limited to engineering institutes and engineering departments of universities in six streams, namely, Civil, Mechanical, Electronics, Computer & IT, Electrical and Chemical. Their industry linkages were captured through a survey and the feedback analysed by a high-level jury.